Tartu University Hospital

Traumatology and Orthopaedics is the leading clinic of its kind in Estonia and also well known in the Nordic countries. Since autumn 2006 the clinic has been acknowledged all over Europe as an expert in the field of joint prosthesis, as is shown by its corresponding certification.

The clinic has developed into a well-functioning structural unit that coordinates and leads the development of the profession in Estonia. The main development indicators of orthopaedics include the increases in the numbers of emergency traumatology patients, complicated traumatology cases and lower limb, joint and spinal column degenerative diseases.

3,500 operations are performed here each year, among them 950 joint endoprostheses and 700 day surgery procedures.

In the last five years the number of the clinic’s scientific publications has reached 40. Five people with doctor’s degrees work here and in the next few years this number will increase.

Cooperation with patients

Satisfied patients are very important to the clinic. Several materials designed to inform patients have been compiled to increase their awareness and help them handle their illnesses and diseases in a better way. Cooperation between patients and the clinic is very important from the point of view of achieving good treatment results.

The clinic’s nurses are members of the Estonian Society of Orthopaedics Nurses, which helps them to increase information exchange between nurses and other specialists in Estonia and abroad.

Patient-friendly first aid station

The out-patient activities of the orthopaedics clinic take place in the first aid station, which is unique for its patient-friendly working order. Initial trauma cases are received 24 hours a day and patients are treated until they recover and can return to work or are assigned a disability.

A pilot project of the Ministry of Social Affairs was carried out in the first aid station of the hospital in order to map the behavioural changes and appearance of traumas in Estonia and to adjust them to the coding used within the European Union.

Achievements

• The clinic applies and constantly modernises its operative treatment methods. LCP, LISS and PFN bone fixation appliances are being adopted and the possibilities of osteosynthesis are being further developed. Arthroscopic shoulder and knee joint surgery is also being developed further and new methods for joint prosthesis are being implemented.
• In the orthopaedics department, approximately 1000 joint prosthesis surgeries are performed each year, with more than 6000 such operations performed in the clinic in total. The department has been awarded the Center et Excellence certificate by a leading specialist prosthesis and orthopaedics clinic in Europe.

Plans

• The clinic intends to maintain its leading and coordinating position in Estonia in the field of fracture treatment and joint endoprosthesis.
• The clinic will take an active role in the knee joint endoprosthesis study being performed in several European centres.

Developers of profession

Mati Merila – doctor/lecturer. He has studied the surgical anatomy of shoulder joints in detail. He completed his doctor’s thesis in 2005.

Aare Märtson – assistant professor. The topic of his doctoral thesis was the extension of the lower limb which also included experimental studies of bone regeneration as well as evaluation of long term treatment results. He completed his doctor’s thesis in 2006.

Alar Toom – resident and research master. The topic of his research is “Heterotopic ossification after endoprosthesis of the hip joint”. He completed his doctoral thesis in 2007.

Foreign visitors at the Traumatology and Orthopaedics Clinic

• Professor Markku Järvinen, president of the Nordic Orthopaedics Federation
• Professor Rüdiger von Versen, president of the European Association of Tissue Banks
• Professor Kristaps Keggi, orthopaedics professor at Yale University and founder of the Keggi Orthopaedics Foundation for training residents in the USA
• Doctor Tommy Johanson, Swiss orthopaedist